


Heart Pumping Blood

by prizewinningfruitcake



Series: Bitten [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Cultural Differences, Dalish Elves, F/M, Fluff and Angst, carver takes his shirt off, so jot that down
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 21:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17495780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prizewinningfruitcake/pseuds/prizewinningfruitcake
Summary: The kids get momentarily stranded at Sundermount with Merrill's clan





	Heart Pumping Blood

The glow washes over him, harsh against his eyelids, waves rocking unrelenting. Made it another night. His insides may never recover, twisted all up in knots. Carver cracks a glance and swears. Thatched ceiling slowly rotating, straw poking out at angles. He isn’t at sea; the motion is in his head.

He’s mid rolling over, anticipating minding his head when it occurs there’s no top bunk above him to mind. This is not his house. 

Sitting bolt upright is neither a good course of action for his stomach nor his head. He groans and heaves, and then gasps as Merrill’s voice finds him.

“You should lie back down. I expect you’ll be a bit dizzy.”

He does so, clenching his jaw against another wave of nausea, vision blurring as he lowers himself. Maker, this is the sickest he’s felt in years. Maybe ever. He must have been very drunk.

“I’m so sorry, vhenan. I feel a bit responsible.”

When he opens his eyes again, she’s crouched next to him, and he reels. He’s ruined it. The few times he’s even been in her house, he’s left with a kiss at the most, and now he’s undressed in her bed and doesn’t even remember.

“What’re you sorry for?” he mumbles. His mouth tastes of vomit and blood and grit.

She looks at him sideways. “Do you know where we are? What’s the last thing you remember?”

Someone sharpening a dagger, Marian laughing, flashes of black and red. His last coherent memory is of following Marian out of the house, the tip of her staff bouncing behind her head. It was afternoon. How long ago?

“We were headed to Sundermount,” he says, and then it rushes back. Those beastly giant spiders. Hands and knees in the dirt, _oh Carver, not on my boots_. He can still hear Marian’s laughter faintly repeating in his ears. For a panicked moment, he thinks he might vomit over the edge of the cot, but he braces against his boiling insides until it’s passed. Merrill backs up incrementally, and he tries to think of anything but those things and their fangs, poison in his veins.

“I’ve never seen anyone react to spider venom like that,” she says, a hint of relief in her voice, alongside what sounds dangerously close to amusement. “You must be quite sensitive to it.”

Sensitive, that’s just great. Merrill moves to perch next to him, her hand flitting up towards his face. She cards a hand through his hair, comforting until her delicate fingers come away with white webbing pinched between them. 

He shudders as she flicks it onto the floor. Her face creases, a hand on her chin, “I should have seen it. I wasn’t paying attention.” 

“Where did- I don’t see any bites,” Carver says, tentatively lifting the skins draped over him. He can’t feel his upper thighs at all. 

“They’re not terribly big. And they’re all treated and bandaged now. The healer said it’s just a matter of letting the toxin run its course.”

She isn’t looking at him anymore, thankfully. She glances around the room, crosses over to a chair with some clothing tossed over the back, his sword leaning against the wall behind it. 

The Keeper agreed to let us stay here until you’re ready to make the journey back. She’ll expect you to thank her, just so you know.”

“I know,” he says, more irritably than he meant to. He reaches for his clothes, but finds he has little desire to move. “Did my sister leave?”

“She went back to the city with Varric. I told her I would see to you.” 

Varric was there. Fist to his mouth and Marian leaned sniggering into his shoulder.

Merrill’s put on a dark green tunic that billows around her slight frame, loose around the arms. “You should sleep more. It’s quite early still.”

He curls into himself, letting his limbs fall heavy into a position that’s almost comfortable if he doesn’t think about it too much. Eyes closed, he listens to the rustling and shuffling of Merrill trying to be quiet moving about the room. His chest lurches when she runs her hand over his shoulder on her way out. She said it’s early still; he must have lost several hours. 

But he smiles to himself because she called him vhenan, and though she might not think he knows what that means, he does. He thinks he does anyway. 

Carver doesn’t exactly sleep, but he can’t do much other than lie there burning and shivering and cursing Marian, spiders, the Maker, and anyone else who may have been involved in this turn of events. 

The bites are on his ass, he discovers. Well, one is, and the others are on the backs of his thighs. Marian’s laughter makes a bit more sense now; she’s forever found that sort of thing hilarious. 

Merrill confirms it when she returns. “She felt very badly about it.”

“Nice of her,” he grumbles. 

She laughs softly and turns away. He is making things uncomfortable with his mood, something he has a talent for or a habit of or whatever his sisters have always said. 

She’s pouring water into a cup from a flask, the curve of her hip, the space between her thighs shadowed when the light catches her clothes. It feels familiar somehow, and a sudden but not unpleasant thought descends on him, that he’d like to see her like this every morning.

Just as soon as it comes, he chases it away. “Is that for me?”

“You’re meant to drink as much as you can,” she says, turning to him and raising the flask. Her left arm is bandaged where it wasn’t before. “You need to replace your fluids.”

He’s nervous he’ll spew the water right back, but he doesn’t. “So… we’re with your clan, then?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says, then, “I’m surprised. I thought you’d laugh at the bit about fluids.”

She’s teasing, but something cloudy has crept into her voice since he asked about her clan. “No, I- I mean,” he struggles, “I’m not the one who- I’m not Isabela.”

He gets a smile for that. “No, certainly not. Your boots aren’t nearly tall enough.”

It gets worse before it gets better. The water comes back up just a moment later, as if his stomach has suddenly reversed its stance on _fluids_. And the healer makes it sound like he was even worse last night. 

“I see you’re not on the floor now, at least.”

He never learns the healer’s name, an older pot-bellied man, hair graying around the ears. When he speaks, he doesn’t look at either of them, which makes Carver itchy and irritated, the way he feels when people talk to Marian and act as if he isn’t there. 

The way almost everyone does.

She left him here, her own brother, an inconvenience to her plans. He can only imagine what’s so damned important, that took precedence over his being violently ill and apparently lying on the floor at some point.

Probably Anders. Probably… whatever they get up to when they go out for days at a time. She can’t be going home; mother would throw a fit. 

She likely already is. Fuck.

The sun is going down by the time his fever breaks. Carver wipes down his face and chest, but still feels sweaty and grimy when he leaves the little structure. 

“I didn’t think the Dalish… built things,” he murmurs to Merrill when he finds her sitting cross-legged on a log. His knees shake when he settles next to her, and he remembers her unstrapping his sword from his back yesterday and carrying it for him.

“They don’t usually. Nothing permanent. But w- they don’t expect to leave soon, and the weather here is tricky.” 

She was writing in a little book, but she put it away when she saw him coming. About the camp there’s movement, back and forth, figures dark against the sky’s dusky pinks and blues. They’re cooking, cutting, cleaning - about the same activity as you’d find in Kirkwall or Lothering or wherever, except outdoors. That grumpy woodworker has his coveted blue bark, and the slow rhythmic scraping of his tools is oddly soothing, makes everything else quiet in comparison. 

The Keeper finds them, asks after him. Her voice is kind, but her eyes flicker to Merrill’s arm, wrapped just underneath the elbow, back to him, and narrow. 

“What happened to your arm?” he asks once she’s gone.

He forgot to thank her.

She touches it, puts her hand over it like she’s hiding it. “We can talk later.”

“Who is Mythal?”

A very old man squats in front of a group of restless kids, all jabbering and climbing over each other. They answer, but not loudly enough for Carver to hear them. He only hears the man as he replies to them.

“All-Mother, protector, keeper of justice…” 

Merrill must notice him looking. “That’s Paivel. He’s our story-teller.”

“And what did she do?” Paivel asks.

Carver remembers he and Bethany sitting in the Chantry in a group like that one, some Sister or another talking at them. They didn’t ask questions, though; they only talked. Beth always sat at the front, while he hunched in the back and stared longingly out the window. 

His stomach growls. 

“...from the sea, yes…” Paivel is saying.

“I heard that,” Merrill smiles sly, and inclines her head towards his center. 

“Yes, the moon, that’s right, Adara. Now what-”

Carver puts a hand to his belly. Less sore than it was. “Heh, yeah, I guess I’m…”

She nods, brushes off her bum when she stands, turns around three quarters or so like a dog. The way she nearly always does when she stands up. “I’ll get you something.”

“...and quelled Elgar’nan’s rage, so that the sun could return, and the world be remade. What does this story tell us...”

The others avoid her, part around her as she moves through them. No words, that he can hear at least, but glares, grimaces. There’s a shoulder bump, brief enough to be accidental, but it isn’t. She doesn’t react. His head buzzes and his throat hurts. When she carefully hands him a steaming flat piece of bread, he has to unclench his fist to take it from her. 

She called him vhenan. He wasn’t imagining it. And he thinks he knows what it means.

Eating was a good idea. He feels sturdier, more focused. And ready to get out of here. He almost asks Merrill if she’d like to go now, but it doesn’t make sense to leave in the dark. 

They stay one more night, he on the same cot as before, her elsewhere. He wishes he knew where. He wishes he’d at least asked her if she’d like to go home.

He wakes to arguing outside, and wishing hardens into regret. 

“I am not a child-”

“I understand that. I wonder if you do, Merrill.”

He slept in his clothes this time. He still feels vaguely hungover. 

“I wonder if you’ve considered-”

“Even if I hadn’t, haven’t you conjured every horrid scenario, every-” Merrill’s voice climbs several steps, threatening to break, “ _dire consequence_ you could think of by now? And haven’t I answered you? Every time, haven’t I-”

They stop abruptly as he rounds the corner, two faces whipping towards him. 

He doesn’t say anything, and wouldn’t be able to think of anything if he had intended to. 

Merrill looks him up and down. He must look awful. “We should go.”

The Keeper is taller than Merrill, and standing up straighter. She is slightly out of breath, and looking at him like he’s a fox in her hen coop. 

“I’ll get your pack,” he says. 

They don’t go back to Kirkwall. She heads further up the mountain without waiting for him, and he has to run to catch up to her. 

Now even she’s leaving him behind. 

He shouts after her once he’s caught sight of her again, and she turns quickly as if she’s startled to see him there. 

And something jumps out behind her. 

“Merrill!”

She yelps and lets out a wave of energy, knocking both he and something brown and furry back a few paces. 

He stays on his feet. The goat tumbles backward and rolls, hooves flying. 

It was a goat. “Oh,” he says, slinging his sword onto his back again, “I thought that was…”

Merrill nods and straightens. “I know.”

She thinks he’s an idiot. He’s sweating again, exhausted, and he needs a bath. And no matter where he goes, no one wants him there. 

“Can we-” he shrugs, exasperated. “Can we go home?”

A sharp intake of breath, and she crumples, her hand over her mouth, and everything aches. 

“Merrill…”

He’s ruined it. If it weren’t for him, she would have left two days ago and none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t be standing here crying. She’d be probably doing whatever Marian’s doing right now.

Feeling useless, he takes a few tentative steps towards her because, well, there’s no one else here to do it. She doesn’t pull away when he lays a hand on her shoulder; she leans into him, her head on his chest. 

“I’m sorry, Carver,” she says.

She called him vhenan. 

“No,” he replies, arms around her shoulders, and leaves it at that. 

“Can we sit for a while,” she asks, “first?”

She leads them to a small lake off the path, and he leaves her to sit on her own while he washes off. Even in summer, the water is freezing. It feels awful and nice at the same time. 

He pulls his trousers back on, his boots, stubborn on wet legs, and finds her again. 

She’s sitting on a rock with her knees pulled up to her chest. She looks like a ghost in the fog, like something mysterious. “Do you ever feel like,” she says after a while, “everyone in the world knows something that you don’t? Something so obvious they wouldn’t even know to tell you?”

“All the time,” he answers without hesitation. “Like if someone couldn’t see colors or something.”

“That’s how it’s been since we got here,” he says. He doesn’t even remember getting here, not really. “I feel stupid. I- What’s going on? What happened to your arm?”

She winces. He must have spoken too harshly.

“Blood magic?”

A nod. “What I’m doing isn’t safe.” She’s not crying anymore, her voice more confident than he expected. “But I know that, and I’m being- I’ve taken precautions.”

He should disapprove. That’s what his father would do, what Marian would do. Though lately, he isn’t entirely certain he knows that about Marian. “Merrill…”

“This is what I’m supposed to do. I’ve studied for this my entire life. This is- This is what I’m supposed to be doing. I don’t understand why it’s all gone so wrong.”

She’s crying again, a shaking hand wiping her nose and then thrust out in front of her as if she’s choking someone. “I don’t understand. And there’s no one I can go to. A Keeper is supposed to help, but she-” She puts her head between her knees, and he wants to take what’s hurting her and snap it in two. 

“I don’t know why you’re any of you doing this,” he says.

She looks up at him, questioning. “Why torture yourselves over something that’s gone?” he asks. He’s speaking louder than he should, his voice an intrusion on the peaceful scene in front of them. “Why does everyone pray to gods that don’t listen to them? I don’t understand it. Why dwell?”

“What would you have us do?”

She says it gently, not intending to scold him or make him feel stupid, so he tries not to feel that way anyway. 

He tries. “I… I don’t know. Look forward instead of back, I guess. That’s- I don’t know. All anyone talks about around me is what they used to be.”

Merrill shakes her head. “It’s different for you, for your family. You know where you’ve been. All we have is what we’ve been. And from what I do know, it’s worth searching out.”

She sounds sure now, in a quiet way. He sighs. 

“You’re a lot smarter than me.”

“No I’m not,” she says immediately. A reflex, politeness. 

Her ears are flushed. He touches behind one of them, soft with his knuckles, the backs of his fingers, and she jumps a little. 

“Sorry,” he says.

“No, it’s-” She hugs him, slipping arms around his waist, and he hugs back. It’s been too long since they haven't had eyes on them.

She’s warm, her face wet and pressed against him, and he should have put his shirt back on. As if she’s read his mind, she says, “Carver, don’t you ever wear a shirt?”

He laughs weakly. “Uh…”

“I’m teasing. I like it.”

She called him vhenan. 

“You’re not alone,” he says. “Not if you don’t want to be.”

Arms squeeze him tighter. “The Keeper doesn’t like you. Doesn’t-” She seems to think better of that statement, “Doesn’t approve of you.”

“You told her?”

“Not intentionally. She has a way of just knowing things.” 

That’s what she says, but she’s hugging him still. And she likes it when he doesn’t wear a shirt. She shifts fully into his lap, fits in the space between there and his chin easily, her back against his chest. She’s light, easy to hold. No trouble at all.

He waits for her to tell him either way.

“I don’t care about that. Do you care?” She lifts her arm, and he catches it, examines the wrapping, where she bound it up. 

“Does it hurt?” he asks.

“Not anymore.”

“I want to- What does vhenan mean?”

She tilts her head back to look at him. “It means ‘heart.’ _Ma vhenan_ , my heart. I’m sorry, I assumed you knew, but I shouldn’t have.”

“I was just making sure.” He pulls her against him again, backs straight and even. “I want to help however I can. I don’t know if that’s what I should do, but I want to.”

He wants her to be safe. 

“Just keep me company,” she says. “That’s all the help I need.”

“I can do that.”


End file.
